At length, about seventy days after his departure from England, and a hundred and ten after quitting Paris, Napoleon reached St. Helena.  In the harbour were several vessels of the squadron which had separated from them, and which they thought they had left behind.  Napoleon, contrary to custom, dressed early and went upon deck:  he went forward to the gangway to view the island.  He beheld a kind of village surrounded by numerous barren hills towering to the clouds.  Every platform, every aperture, the brow of every hill was planted with cannon.  The Emperor viewed the prospect through his glass.  His countenance underwent no change.  He soon left the deck; and sending for Las Cases, proceeded to his day’s work.  The Admiral, who had gone ashore very early, returned about six much fatigued.  He had been walking over various parts of the island, and at length thought he had found a habitation that would suit his captives.  The place stood in need of repairs, which might occupy two months.  His orders were not to let the French quit the vessel till a house should be prepared to receive them.  He, however, undertook, on his own responsibility, to set them on shore the next day.

On the 16th, after dinner, Napoleon, accompanied by the Admiral and the Grand-Marshal, Bertrand, got into a boat to go ashore.  As he passed, the officers assembled on the quarter-deck, and the greater part of the crew on the gangways.  The Emperor, before he stepped into the boat, sent for the captain of the vessel, and took leave of him, desiring him at the same time to convey his thanks to the officers and crew.  These words appeared to produce the liveliest sensation in all by whom they were understood, or to whom they were interpreted.  The remainder of his suite landed about eight.  They found the Emperor in the apartments which had been assigned to him, a few minutes after he went upstairs to his chamber.  He was lodged in a sort of inn in James Town, which consists only, of one short street, or row of houses built in a narrow valley between two rocky hills.

The next day the Emperor, the Grand-Marshal, and the Admiral, riding out to visit Longwood, which had been chosen for the Emperor’s residence, on their return saw a small villa, with a pavilion attached to it, about two miles from the town, the residence of Mr. Balcombe; a merchant of the island.  This spot pleased Napoleon, and the Admiral was of opinion that it would be better for him to remain here than to return to the town, where the sentinels at his door, with the crowds collected round it, in a manner confined him to his chamber.  The pavilion was a sort of summer-house on a pyramidal eminence, about thirty or forty paces from the house, where the family were accustomed to resort in fine weather:  this was hired for the temporary abode of the Emperor, and he took possession of it immediately.  There was a carriage-road from the town, and the valley was in this part less rugged in its aspect.  Las Cases